All the Lights (9 page)

She held it in one hand, squatting down in front of him and looking up at him. She had short blonde hair, and now he saw she was freshly made up. Bright red lips, and he turned around and went to the window. As he went to pull the curtains aside she held onto his arm. He looked at her, and she said, ‘I’ve never … never had a …’ she thought for a moment. ‘Black, I’ve never …’ she thought again, ‘never touched such dark skin,’ and then she laughed. She was still holding onto his arm. ‘Soft,’ she said. He looked at the curtains and then at her hand. He was tired, so tired. He’d cheated on his wife once, before a fight in Madrid, with a little black-haired Spanish woman; he’d spent the whole night in a hotel with her. The next night in the ring, he’d taken one punch after another, left, right, hooks, jabs, and he felt like he couldn’t keep his cover up whenever his opponent went for him, a little black-haired Spanish man. Left, right, hooks, jabs. The audience had booed and whistled; he was known for giving all he had, for defending himself with everything he had, for countering, pummelling his opponent’s body, for testing them, his opponents, getting everything out of them, giving them a challenge they could learn from, but that night he’d let the other man beat his head in. His wife had cried when he’d come home, his face swollen and smashed, a cut on his cheekbone. She’d stroked his face and he’d told her quietly about the boxing club he could come in on, if he put a bit of money into it. A few more fights, just a few more fights.

‘Come over here,’ she said. ‘Lie down, have a rest. You can stay all night if you like.’ He nodded, and she took him by the arm and led him to the sofa against the wall by the table. It was a pretty large sofa with a couple of cushions on it, and it looked huge in the small room. He lay down and then she was sitting next to him. Her hands were on his chest, he closed his eyes, felt her unbuttoning his jacket and taking it off. He meant to say something, wanted to say no, but she said, ‘Shhhh,’ as if she were calming a young child. He wanted to get up and leave, no matter if they were waiting for him outside, but he stayed lying there, he’d fought eight long rounds. He’d have a rest, get some sleep and maybe let her stroke him to sleep, that was all. He wasn’t going to cheat on his wife again, not ever. She laid her chest on his and said, ‘You can stay all night.’ And that calmed him somehow, her breathing very even, and he thought about a lot of things and gradually fell asleep.

He leapt up. He leapt up so quickly that she stumbled aside. He was all there again. ‘No,’ he said, laying his hand on his trouser pocket. ‘My money, bitch.’ The roll of notes had moved – had he felt her hands? He hadn’t imagined it, even though he was wiped out and drunk and might have been half asleep, but now he was all there again. He stroked his shirt smooth. ‘Bastard,’ she said as he picked up his jacket and went to the door. ‘They’ll wreck your face, they’ll wreck your face even more, your ugly black face!’ She laughed, loud and shrill, and he could still hear her laughing as he ran down the stairs.

He ran. He thought of all his running through Rotterdam’s harbour, running and running to keep his form, thought of the ships and cranes disappearing and only the sea still there. He heard them behind him. They’d jumped out of the car; now he saw tower blocks on either side, tall and white, the night strangely bright. He had to get to the dark, he had to disappear into the dark to shake them off. He tried to breathe evenly, took deep breaths in and out again, in and out again. He turned around for a moment; they’d already fallen back slightly. A few minutes ago one of them had been so close behind him that he could hear him breathing. He’d fought eight long, hard rounds, but he had enough breath for at least twelve. Oh no, they weren’t going to get him, he’d be taking his money back to Rotterdam, to his wife, to the boxing club, and he’d run along the harbour in the evenings to keep in shape, he’d run until only the sea was still there, and he’d laugh about them.

He turned into a narrow, dark street, the street lights almost all broken, and he ran close up to the buildings so they couldn’t see him.

He ran past old derelict houses, and when he turned around again he saw the tall white tower blocks behind the houses; he didn’t see the men chasing him any more but he kept on running, not slowing down.

There were people standing there, a tight group outside one of the houses in the light of a street lamp; it seemed like the only lamp in the narrow road still working. They called something out as he ran past them; he heard them laughing, bottles clinking, but he kept looking ahead; he saw the dark street and he ran until he suddenly choked and he had to stop, leaning against a house, then falling to his knees and vomiting. He puked until everything blurred before his eyes and he thought he heard the referee counting. One, two, three … By eight he was back on his feet, wiping the vomit from his mouth and his jacket. All silent behind him. No footsteps, no shouts. He walked on slowly, the street leading ahead of him into a wider, brighter one. There were the tower blocks again, and he was suddenly scared. He wanted to stay in the dark, narrow road until morning came. His things were in a hotel at the station but he didn’t know where the station was, didn’t know where he was. He walked on slowly, no cars coming along the road. He saw the white tower blocks ahead; they seemed uninhabited, large empty rectangles. He’d grown up in an estate of tower blocks in Rotterdam, had spent most of his youth there, often fighting on the street before he’d started boxing, he’d trained every day so he wouldn’t have to fight on the street any more. And he didn’t like the thought that he might have to fight on the street again, here in this German town.

Later, in a taxi to the station, he couldn’t remember what had happened and how and in what order. He kept saying all the way, ‘I’m still here, you bastards, I’m still here.’ He said it in Dutch, said it in German and laughed in the driver’s face watching him in the rear-view mirror. He was still holding the banknote in his hand he’d used to wave. He’d wrenched the door open, leapt onto the back seat, and then they drove off. A bottle shattered on the road behind them. They shouted something but he couldn’t understand it, didn’t want to understand it either, they were behind him, they stayed in their part of town and he drove off.

At first he’d thought it was his friends from the bar again, that they’d spotted him again and caught up with him, but they’d had more hair on their heads than these ones, walking beside him on either side, him in the middle of the road so he had more space, and maybe a car would come after all, he walked down the middle of the road between the tall, white tower blocks, and they were on the pavements, forming a kind of cordon.

‘Piss off out of here, nigger!’

‘You stink!’

‘Get back to the jungle!’

‘Looking for trouble, are you?’

He knew they’d get him if he started running. There was no referee here to take him out of the fight for exhaustion. He walked very slowly, keeping his head lowered, flexing his shoulders under his jacket. Five or six on one side, five or six on the other. He looked straight ahead, only seeing them out of the corners of his eyes. He knew one of them had to start, had to step out onto the road to him, and then the others would come too, then the dance would begin. He had a pen in his jacket pocket and he’d use it. Eyes, necks, all the soft spots.

The taxi pulled up right outside the door of his hotel. It was almost light now. The street was empty. He handed the driver the banknote. He said, ‘OK,’ and made a hand gesture when the driver wanted to give him change. The driver nodded, ‘
Danke
.’ He got out and watched the taxi until it disappeared. He put his head back, blinking at the ever-lightening sky. He wouldn’t sleep; he’d pick up his bag and get on the first train to Berlin, from there to Cologne and then straight home. He smelt the vomit on his jacket. It hurt to breathe. His legs trembled, he could barely feel them and he swayed to and fro. But none of that bothered him. Nineteen – thirty-two – three.

It’s the last night I’ve got but I don’t tell her that, and we walk through the streets, and I look at all the lights and then at her. She’s just as beautiful as back then, as if we were still fifteen or sixteen, no, she was thirteen, and somehow she still has a part of back then inside her, and I look at all the lights and talk about this and that.

She says something and I say, ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ and then we’re silent for a while and keep walking until she stops outside one of those posh bars with fancy cocktails and fancy people, and she says, ‘Here.’

I go to open the door for her but she’s quicker, and I walk inside ahead of her. I look over to the bar and across the half-dark room, and I feel her standing behind me, and I walk over to one of the small tables. We sit down. At the bar and at the other tables, women and men are sitting in the twilight drinking brightly-coloured cocktails or coffee out of big round cups with no handles. I take a brief look at her; she’s reading the menu and I watch her hand moving slowly across the paper. I look at her face, and her lips are moving very slowly too, lots of pretty cocktails with brightly coloured straws and little umbrellas and coffee in big round cups with no handles. She moves her lips and stares at the paper, and then she crumples it up and says, ‘Why can’t you just leave me alone, why don’t you get it? I don’t want anything to do with you,’ and even though she’s said it so often before I just nod and look at her. She takes the crumpled letter with her when she gets up – why doesn’t she leave it behind? – and I watch her go until she’s at the door and turns around again and gives me an angry look, with a slight crease from the top of her nose up to her forehead, and then she’s gone.

There’s a small beer in front of me, I don’t know where it came from, and she says, ‘Well then … Cheers,’ and I nod and says, ‘Cheers,’ and we clink glasses.

We put our glasses down almost simultaneously. She’s drinking a dark red cocktail, blood orange or something like that, and there’s a stripe of the stuff above her top lip. I try not to look her in the eye for too long, running my finger across my mouth a couple of times. She smiles, takes a serviette and wipes the red stripe away. I take a sip of beer and look into my glass. I hear her drinking too, I hear her coughing, then only the music and the quiet buzz of conversation from the other tables.

I put my fingertips on my beer glass and stroke across the curve and the long, thin stalk it stands on. It’s one of those small glasses we used to call ‘tulips’ back then, but I haven’t heard that for a long time now.

‘Have you been in town a lot the last few years?’

‘No,’ I say, without looking up.

‘Only on business then.’ She laughs, and I don’t know why, and that scares me, and I ask, ‘Why are you laughing?’ and she laughs, and I look at her top front teeth, the two in the middle a tiny bit longer than the ones next to them, but only a tiny little bit, and I see her laughing and her teeth even though she’s so far away, she’s walking across the sports hall with the other girls, but all I see is her and I lean my forehead against the glass.

‘I’m just imagining,’ she says, still laughing, ‘I can’t imagine it, you know, you in a suit …’

I nod. ‘I couldn’t imagine it either, back then.’

She stops laughing. ‘Sorry,’ she says.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Don’t be.’

‘No, I’m glad.’ She leans forward, and her face is quite close to mine. ‘Glad you’re doing well. I sometimes thought, over the years …’

‘What did you think, over the years?’

‘Well, you know.’ She leans even further forward, and I feel a tiny drop of her somewhere below my cheekbone. ‘I was so mean to you, back then, and I’m sorry.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Don’t be,’ and I can still feel the little drop and I tilt my head and wipe it away with my shoulder.

‘I,’ she says, ‘I …’ She reaches for the dark red cocktail, takes out the straw and puts it on the table, then she drinks a couple of mouthfuls, holding onto the glass with two hands. ‘Maybe … I guess I wasn’t ready, back then.’

‘Why – why are you saying that?’ I down my beer in one draft and slam the glass on the table. No, I’ve got everything under control and I put it down carefully on the coaster. ‘After all these years …’

‘I haven’t … haven’t seen you for so long,’ she says, ‘and now … and now, don’t get me wrong …’

‘No, no,’ I say. ‘I understand. I understood you back then as well.’ I put the empty glass to my mouth again, feeling the tiny leftover of beer on my lip, and then I say, ‘Sorry.’

‘No,’ she says, and the little table moves because she’s moving too. ‘Don’t be.’

We look at each other, I nod, she smiles, I turn around and gesture for the waiter. The guy looks pretty gay in his skin-tight lilac shirt, and I smile at him the way I want to smile at her. ‘Hey, faggot,’ I say. ‘Lonely, are you?’ No, I just think it and order a small beer. ‘Do you want anything else?’ I ask her, and she shakes her head. The waiter takes my empty glass and scuttles off to the bar.

‘And you really want to stay in town?’ She rests her chin on both hands, and I nod and try to smile and say, ‘We’ll see.’

‘And your business?’

‘Oh yeah,’ I say. ‘It’s going … going pretty well. Can’t complain.’

‘That’s a nice hotel you’re staying at.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It’s not bad, it’s really not … but in the long term …’

‘True,’ she says. ‘You could get a flat, I know someone … I mean, if you want …’

‘We’ll see,’ I say, and then my beer comes at last, and I pick up the glass and drink and think about the hotel and the flat and her, about meeting her three days ago, even though she’s sitting right in front of me, think about her teacup still standing in the room that’s not mine, standing on the table for three days now. Rosehip tea. I don’t know anyone else who drinks that kind of thing, and the teabag’s still next to the cup, small, brown and shrivelled. I put the empty beer glass on the table and get up. ‘Got to go to the little boy’s room.’ I walk around between the tables looking for the toilet, a woman and a man, at four or five little tables, all with a candle on them, just like ours, woman – woman – woman, two men alone at one table, with a candle as well, but nobody all on their own, the gay waiter standing behind the bar and flirting with a woman, and suddenly he doesn’t look gay at all, and then I spot the toilet doors at last in an alcove beside the bar. A man on the left, a woman on the right, and I stumble into the door, and before I open it I turn around again. Our table is a long way off now; she’s sitting with her back to me, resting her chin on both arms, and not moving.

I stand at the wash-basin, the cold water running out of my hair and over my face. I look in the mirror. I’m wearing a white shirt I bought this morning. I never usually wear white shirts or suits either, and now the water’s dripping out of my hair and off my face onto the shirt, making tiny stains on the material. I see my pale face and try to smile and support myself on the edge of the basin.

‘Am I on my own, you mean?’ I nod. ‘No wife, no children. Just …  just business, you know …’

‘And …’

‘Do I ever think about it, you want to know? Yes, sometimes.’ I look at the cup between us on the table in the hotel room. I ordered a whisky, I’ve been holding the glass in my right hand for ten minutes, and the three ice cubes are getting smaller and smaller. Rosehip tea. I don’t know anyone who drinks that kind of thing, and then the cup’s suddenly empty, and the teabag’s on the table next to the cup, small, brown and shrivelled.

‘Am I on my own?’ I grin at the mirror and say, ‘Not yet, but I soon will be,’ and when the door opens and closes again and there’s some guy behind me I turn around, grab him by the throat with my left hand, push him against the wall and press his head up against the tiles. ‘Keep your hands off her, you bastard, you keep your fucking hands off her.’

He wants to say something but I’m holding him so tightly by the throat that only his lips move, and I put my right hand over his mouth and press his head even harder against the wall. ‘Don’t touch her.’ I whisper in his ear. ‘You keep your fucking hands off her.’ He’s quiet now, not moving, breathing in and out again very quickly, and I feel his breath on my hand. I let him go. I turn around and look at him in the mirror. He’s pale and silent.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s nothing to do with you, you bastard.’

I dry my face on a paper towel. I’m scared someone will come through the door – I want to be with her just a little bit longer. I open the door and see her far away at our table, pushing the candle to and fro, and I can tell she must be smiling. I go to the bar and pay our bill, and then I’m back with her. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I say, putting my hand on her shoulder very carefully. ‘Let’s go somewhere else. Please.’ Her shoulder moves, and I take my hand away again.

‘Are you not feeling well?’ She gets up, and I take a few steps back.

‘No, no, I’m fine.’ I see someone going to the toilets, but it’s a woman. ‘I just need a bit of fresh air. Let’s go somewhere else. Pool – can you play pool?’

‘A little bit,’ she says, and then we walk past all the tables and candles and go outside.

The night’s almost over, and we’re walking through the streets, and I look at all the lights and then at her, but mostly at the lights. She’s just as beautiful as back then, as if we were still fifteen or sixteen … and somehow she still has a part of back then inside her, and we walk through the empty streets and stop in front of shop windows and talk about this and that.

‘You played well just then,’ I say.

‘Oh no,’ she laughs, ‘only because you …’

‘No, no,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t on good form today, but you … you had a bit of luck, but you were really good.’ She leans over the table and I’m standing behind her, I take her arm and say, ‘Just a little bit, a tiny bit further to the left. You have to hit it on the arse.’

‘On the arse?’ She’s leaning over the table, one eye pressed closed, moving the cue to and fro. ‘Further to the side,’ I say, shifting her arm very carefully. She looks up at me, one eye still pressed closed, with a crease from the top of her nose up to her forehead. She pots the ball, and I shoot mine off the cushions and across the table but don’t pot them, let them stop before the pockets, because I want to see her happy when she wins.

We’re standing in front of a shop window with all sorts of shoes on display, a tiny pair right at the front. I look at my watch. In eight hours, I’ll be picking up my bags and disappearing. ‘It’s late,’ she says.

‘It’s late,’ I say and look at the tiny pair of shoes and walk on slowly. I haven’t smoked all evening and I take out my pack and light one up. I turn around, she’s still standing in the light of the shop window, and I take a drag at my cigarette, then I flick it against the wall. A few small sparks fall onto the pavement with the cigarette. She comes towards me slowly. ‘I’ll walk you home,’ I say. ‘Then I have to go to the hotel.’

‘Do you know where I live now?’ I nod. ‘How come …?’

‘Someone told me.’ We keep walking. It’s not far to her flat, and I walk very slowly and stop at every shop window, even the ones only displaying ring binders.

‘If you really stay here …’

‘I’m sure it’ll work out,’ I say, standing in front of a shop; nothing to see in this one, just the counter at the back of the room, long and dark.

‘There are plenty of flats free round my way, if you like, I know someone …’

‘Let’s … let’s not talk about it now.’ I look into the shop, then we walk on, the road empty, just a couple of cars driving past now and then, and I see the lights of the cars and the lights of the lamps on the edge of the street, and then we’re standing outside her house. I light up a cigarette. ‘You smoke?’

‘Sometimes,’ I say.

‘Have you got one for me?’ I want to give her mine, I’m holding it away from me between my thumb and forefinger with the lit tip downwards, but then I push it back between my lips and hold the box out to her. She takes one out and I give her a light.

‘I used to smoke too,’ she says, ‘a while ago now, though.’

She smokes hastily and quickly, and blows the smoke away to one side. ‘When …’

‘Soon,’ I say. ‘Maybe tomorrow even, I have to sort out a couple of things, work and the hotel and that.’

‘I … I’m so glad we met up again, that you’re …’

‘Yes,’ I say, and I want to lean in to her but then I see the taxi driving slowly down the road, the sign on the roof glowing yellow.

I raise my arm and wave, twice, three times, and it comes over slowly and halts. The window’s wound down, and I say, ‘I’ll just be a minute.’

I throw away my cigarette, lean up close to her and say, ‘Look after yourself,’ and I lay my hand on her hair for just a moment. She doesn’t say anything, and I turn away and walk over to the taxi. At first I want to sit in the front, but then I get into the back. ‘The station,’ I say. That’s where my bag is, in a locker. I’ll sit down on a bench and wait for the morning and the train.